Travel Pick: Art and Archaeology in Spain
Underdrawing in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Paintings

The exhibition The Hidden Line aims to reveal the under-drawings present in some of the Museo del Prado’s most important fifteenth- and sixteenth-century paintings. These are drawings executed by artists such as Bosch, Botticelli, Raphael and Fernando Gallego during the course of creating their paintings and at the stage prior to applying the paint. Such under-drawings, in black chalk, metal point, ink or charcoal, are obviously not visible to the human eye as they are concealed by the paint layers.

Thanks to the technique of infra-red reflectography, this show reveals the drawings hidden beneath the paint layers in a group of outstanding works in the collection of the Museo del Prado, including The Table of the Seven Deadly Sins by Bosch, The Holy Family (known as The Pearl ) by Raphael, and The Death of Saint Peter Martyr by Berruguete.